East is East
Ayub Khan Din
Octagon Theatre Bolton, Citizens Theatre Glasgow and Wiltshire Creative, with Derby Theatre
Octagon Theatre, Bolton
September 4-October 3, 2026: 2 hrs 30 mins
(also at Glasgow Citizens Theatre, October 7-17; Derby Theatre, October 20-November 4; Salisbury Playhouse, November 3-14)
The Octagon opens early in autumn with a 30th anniversary production of East is East, Ayub Khan Din’s thoughtful comedy of life in early 1970s Salford. “A modern classic”, director Kash Arshad calls it; modern classic or period piece? More of that anon.
You have to be quite long in the tooth (like me) now to look back in nostalgia on that time. Rachana Jadhav’s set is big and impressive, with black and white photo blow-ups evoking the era, like stills from early Corrie title sequences, and three main acting areas. There’s a central one that transforms from the Khan family’s kitchen to their business - a fish and chip shop, (and back again, several times over), and briefly to their front parlour; another to represent their back yard, complete with the “shed” that uneasy youngster Sajit retreats to; and another, looking like the base of a brick chimney, with a balustrade where brothers Tariq and Abdul can be together, away from mum and dad.
It all works well in the Octagon’s intimate auditorium, spreading across about a third of its space. The transformations - done by the cast over music, with a bit of dancing thrown in - get a bit tiresome in the first act, but Jane Lalljee’s lighting effectively enhances changes of locale later.
The story is about – as Arshad puts it – “the experience of being brought up in a Muslim household, with a white British mother and a Pakistani father, who ran his own business, with kids who felt not British enough to be British nor Pakistani enough to be Pakistani.”
In previous incarnations this has hit home as the tragi-comedy of dad George, trying to rule his household in the way he sees as hallowed by religion and tradition for the best. His attempt to make arranged marriages for two of his sons proves the breaking point, as they see the world a very different way. Bhasker Patel makes him sympathetic as well as comic, a trifle exaggerated at first (but that brings the laughs) – then movingly baffled as the whole tone of the play changes after the interval.
This interpretation, though, brings mum Ella (Samantha Power) to the fore as the outright heroine of the show. It wasn't for nothing that on Press night, not long after being hit and humiliated by her husband, her furious seeing-off of the snobbish and critical Mr Shah gained her a spontaneous round of audience applause. She was the ultimate northern working-class coping mum, holding everything together - including her own moral code - against all odds.
There are good characterisations, too, from Victoria Brazier as Auntie Annie, the four grown-up sons still in the family circle (Danyal Ismail as Abdul, Zaki Ali as Tariq, Joeravar Sangha as Maneer, and Matthew Khan as Saleem – each creating a believable individual), and Maya Dhokia’s Meenah (clearly her mother’s daughter, maybe a bit too hyper-energetic). Rohan Macleod makes Sajit interesting and appealing.
I’ve had, and still have, a problem with this play. OK, it’s a comedy, and set 50 years in the past. But George is a man who is violent with his children, and his wife, to enforce his will – and his sons are misogynistic, despite having a sister (one of them instantly dismisses a girl Tariq is friendly with as “a slag”). It’s hard to like them, and maybe the play wants us to like them a bit too much.
More info and tickets here
